Error of Elimination
by EnoughToTemptMe
Summary: Bellamy's pretty sure that there's an old quote that goes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The only thing is, if Bellamy believes that, then Clarke must be dying. BellarkeFicWeek 2015 Prompt: Day 07 Clarke is Pregnant AU. Part 7 of a series.


Bellamy is absolutely fucking terrified.

He tries not to let it show, because it's not going to help things any if any of the kids or Arkers catch wind that something's not right, but he's going out of his fucking mind.

It's Clarke.

She _says _she's fine, _honestly, Bellamy, I worked through a hemorrhagic fever and I can work through this, _but Bellamy knows she's not fine. She's the _opposite_ of fine; he can see it in the drawn lines of her face and in the grey that replaces all of the color in her skin at random times of the day. He can feel it in the way she tosses and turns and night, too hot in the April air when, as long as he's known her, she's always run cold. He can hear it in her too-steady breathing, carefully regulated to keep herself from dry-heaving.

She's been like this for a couple weeks, but she only admitted to Bellamy last night that she's not sure what's going on.

"I've gone through all my symptoms," she had told him. "But I ruled out every possibility I could come up with." She smiled wryly at him. "It's probably just a new bug we haven't yet encountered on the ground."

Bellamy isn't satisfied with that explanation––he doesn't want an unexplainable _bug_, he wants a diagnosis with a fast-acting _cure_, so he tracks down Lincoln early the next morning when he knows Octavia's busy washing up at the lake.

(Clarke's going to _kill _him if she finds out he blabbed to Lincoln, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do, he justifies.)

Lincoln looks at him with a funny expression when Bellamy lists off Clarke's symptoms in a hushed voice inside of Lincoln and Octavia's cabin. The other man opens his mouth to speak, but he pauses and his brow furrows when Bellamy adds that Clarke doesn't know what could be wrong, and are there any illnesses that the _Trikru _are familiar with that could be making Clarke sick?

"You say that Clarke doesn't know what's wrong?" Lincoln repeats.

Bellamy shakes his head. His gut is tied in knots. "No, she thinks it must be some kind of new bug."

Lincoln looks troubled.

Bellamy feels ill. "What?" he demands. "Do you know what's going on?"

Lincoln shakes his head slowly. "No," he says, "But I'm not a healer. If Clarke's certain she doesn't know what's wrong, then Octavia and I will leave for TonDC. Perhaps Nyko can make more sense of her symptoms."

Bellamy swallows hard. "Can you leave today?" he blurts out. "_Please_?" It's embarrassing to beg the warrior for anything, but it's for _Clarke _and Bellamy's beyond caring about what's embarrassing or not.

He's grateful when Lincoln only nods, his face serious.

"Thank you," he says. "And, uh, can you not mention this to anybody?" _Can you not mention this to Clarke _is unspoken, but Bellamy know Lincoln understands when he agrees.

* * *

His sister and Lincoln return by late afternoon the next day, and by the look on Octavia's face he knows that she's now aware of Clarke's illness.

(It's a miracle more people don't know, Bellamy thinks; it's almost scary how good Clarke is at hiding it. He doesn't want to think about how sick she could have been without him knowing if they weren't together, if she hid her sickness even from _him._

Part of him, a part that he has to tell regularly to _shut the fuck up_, is afraid that she's dying.

He tells himself that can't be it, only because he doesn't know what he would do without her.)

After they hand off a packet of semi-rare herbs to Clarke––their excuse for leaving camp in the first place––Bellamy meets the two alone in their cabin.

"What did Nyko say?" he asks immediately. His arms are crossed, and he ignores the way his fingers dig into his own skin.

Octavia is already shaking her head as Lincoln replies. "There are a couple diseases that are close, but they're contagious. Since Clarke is the only one affected, none match exactly."

Octavia's eyes are worried, and at any other time Bellamy would have dropped everything to comfort his little sister, but he can barely keep himself together.

"So it's, what?" Bellamy chokes out. "A new wasting disease or something?"

"We don't know," Octavia says. "Bell."

"What?" he responds, his voice rough.

"Maybe you should radio Camp Jaha," she says quietly. "Clarke's mom might know something."

He presses his lips together grimly, then sighs. "Clarke's not going to like it."

* * *

"I think we should talk to your mom," Bellamy says later that morning in the medbay, watching Clarke carefully. She's perched on a stool in front of her supply table, sorting out her new herbs into their proper storage containers.

She sends him a funny look over her shoulder. "And why exactly do you think that?"

"You know why, Clarke."

He sees her shoulders tense and she pauses for a second before putting the coagulant herbs in their jar.

"That's not necessary," she replies briskly.

Clarke's seen Abby Griffin only a couple of times since they split off permanently from Camp Jaha. Relations between the two camps are cordial enough––Kane, at least, has grown to respect and understand the people the Ark sent to the ground all those months ago, and he was the one to spare them their guns and tools when they left. But the Griffin women stopped thinking alike a long time ago, and the times when Clarke faces her mother are more strained than anything.

But her mother is first and foremost a doctor, and Bellamy knows that Clarke knows Abby would never deny anyone from their camp medical aid.

"Clarke." Bellamy frowns even though he feels like yelling because Clarke's _sick _and _stubborn _and he can't––he just _can't. _"She might be able to figure out what's going on, or at least she might have different medicine than we do. It could help you."

"Bellamy, I said _no_," Clarke bites out, standing up and whipping around to glare at him, and then her face goes completely white and she's swaying and Bellamy's darting forward and sweeping her up just as her legs buckle entirely.

"Shit," he says, his mind blank, white hot panic electrifying each of his limbs when he sees Clarke is well and truly unconscious. "Shit, shit, _shit._"

To hell with it. Clarke's going to see her mother whether she fucking likes it or not.

* * *

All of their effort to keep the rest of the camp from panicking about Clarke's illness is shot to hell when Bellamy runs through the camp, Clarke clutched tight in his arms, head lolling on his shoulder.

The first of the worried questions reaches his ears the same time he reaches the gates. He yells at the Arker on duty to open the gates, ignoring all of the growing shouts of his people until he hears Raven.

"Bellamy!" Her gaze is on Clarke, and her expression is stricken. "What's wrong with Clarke?"

"I don't know," he says roughly. "Radio Camp Jaha that we're coming to see Clarke's mom, then talk to Octavia. She'll fill you in."

Raven nods silently, her eyes locked on Clarke's still body. Bellamy vaguely notices Wick step up behind her and place a hand on the woman's shoulder, but at that moment the gates swing open fully and he's running.

Bellamy's ridiculously grateful that they've settled so close to Camp Jaha; sure, it can be a little awkward sometimes, but they're not _enemies. _And at times like these (times when Clarke's _dying_) even a lake between seems like too much.

The guards see him coming and muffled shouts have the gate opening right as he gets to it. Jackson's already there, gesturing to a stretcher they've got waiting and peppering him with questions, but all Bellamy can do is shake his head, clutching Clarke closer to him and panting. He pushes past them all and heads for Abby Griffin's medbay.

He's not sure what gives him more relief: seeing Abby Griffin hurry out to meet him, her face concerned, or feeling Clarke stir in his arms, groaning a little and pressing her face into his neck.

(It's Clarke, of course; it's always Clarke.)

"What…?" she says blearily, and he can feel the tension fill her body the second she realizes where they are. "Bellamy!"

He wants to hold her forever, kiss her until she stops looking at him with irritation, do anything she asks if only she promises to _never do that again_, but he forces himself to ignore her in favor of her mother.

"Dr. Griffin," he says. "Clarke's sick."

"Hi, Mom," Clarke adds wearily. "No, I'm not."

Abby Griffin may not see her daughter very often anymore, but it doesn't make her Mom Look any less effective.

"And that's why Bellamy Blake _ran _here holding your unconscious body?" she replies, one hand already on Clarke's forehead, another at her pulse.

Clarke glances up at him, her gaze startled and a bit chagrined.

"Come on," Abby says, stepping away and gesturing to the medbay doors. "Let's get her inside."

* * *

Clarke sits on the exam table with a mutinous expression while Bellamy nervously rattles off her symptoms. He notices her surprise when he mentions that the week before, her dry-heaving was replaced with actual vomiting and an inability to eat much at all.

He smiles grimly. Yeah. He noticed that, too, Clarke.

Clarke's mother has an unreadable expression on her face that's not making Bellamy feel any better.

When she says, "I'm go to examine Clarke now. You'll have to wait outside," he feels even worse.

"Can't I stay?" he asks (he's not _begging, _but––he is, a little). But Abby shakes her head.

"I'll call you in when I'm done," she says firmly. Clarke's looking between him and her mother with fear in her eyes for the first time, and he _never_ wants to see that fucking look on her face ever again, so he presses quick kisses to her forehead and to her mouth and then forces himself out of the medbay.

* * *

He's out there forever.

He's not exaggerating, alright? The sun's started to set and it's nearly dusk and he's still _sitting _there, waiting outside the medbay with nothing to do but feel _sick _and stress about Clarke and despair over what will happen to them all if she...

He's so deep in his own head it takes Abby clearing her throat twice to catch his attention, but when she succeeds he stands up so quickly he nearly knocks the woman over.

She's just _looking _at him quietly, and he doesn't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. (It's apparent that all Griffin women have a great and terrible knack for destroying his piece of mind.)

"Clarke?" he asks when it's clear she won't be the first to speak.

Abby nods toward the medbay. "You can see her now." Her voice is cool, collected. She turns to walk away.

"Wait!" he calls. "Did you figure out what's wrong? Is she…"

"Go see Clarke," Abby repeats, and leaves him there.

Bellamy turns to stare at the door to Clarke. He swallows hard and pushes it open.

Inside, Clarke is lying down on the low cot in the corner instead of on the exam table. She's hooked up to an IV with her hands folded and her eyes open, pensive. His eyes are stuck on the IV needle for a moment.

"Hey," she says when she spots him, and she follows his gaze. "Just fluids. I'm a little dehydrated from the throwing up, apparently." She smiles at him, but it's clear she's been crying, too, and his heart drops into his stomach.

"Oh," he replies. "No, don't get up," he adds hastily as she shifts to sit up and make room for him on the cot. Instead he lowers himself to his knees on the ground next to her.

"Clarke?" Bellamy asks hoarsely. His mind is racing and he feels like _he_ might vomit. Something must be terribly wrong for her to look like she does now, and for Abby to have looked at him the way she did. "What's going on?"

She's quiet for a moment. When he reaches out and squeezes her hands, he knows he's probably holding her too tight, but she just turns her palms to hold his right back.

"I'm kind of embarrassed," Clarke says eventually, and Bellamy doesn't quite know how to respond that.

"Uh," he says. "Why?"

"I thought I'd eliminated every possible cause for my symptoms," she says slowly. "But an unknown factor caused me to miss my own diagnosis."

_Unknown factor_? What?

"On the Ark, women were fitted with their implants when they reached sexual maturity, no exceptions. Once you had one, the hormones in them were replaced on a regular basis."

Bellamy stares at Clarke. _What?_

"Except." Here she hesitates, peeking at him through her lashes. "Except in solitary confinement."

His puzzled expression must spur her into her full explanation, because her words are tumbling over each other now. "Because in solitary confinement you don't get to _speak _to anyone else, let alone do, er, anything else, I guess they figured why waste the resources on me? But I didn't know that, so when I got sick I thought that I knew for sure I _couldn't _be, and I've always been irregular, so then I couldn't figure out what's wrong, but, well. I didn't know my implant had failed early."

Bellamy's not a fool. He gets what she's talking around (he thinks). But even though he imagines his open-mouthed expression isn't the most attractive look, he can't seem to respond to Clarke's awkward explanation in a coherent manner.

Clarke grows visibly more nervous as his silence continues.

"So," she says eventually. "There's that."

"Just for clarity's sake," Bellamy says after he's cleared his throat. "What, exactly, is _that_?"

Clarke worries her bottom lip and Bellamy is appalled to see tears well up in her eyes. Before he retract his question (_no, no, it's okay, you can just tell me telepathically or something!_), her hands squeeze his tightly.

"I'm pregnant," she wobbles out, and the tears spill over and Bellamy's extremely alarmed because Clarke's _crying, _and he _hates _when she does that, but she's crying because she's _pregnant, _not because she's _dying, _and that's the best news he's heard all day.

Clarke's not dying.

But Clarke is _pregnant_.

…

Holy _shit. _

"Holy _shit,_" Bellamy says dumbly before he's pulling his hands out of Clarke and brushing ineptly at her cheeks. "Hey, hey, no, don't do that," he pleads with her. "It's alright, princess. Everything's alright."

He feels impossibly large and stupid and clumsy all of a sudden as he kneels next to her, and he's never really known how to deal with a crying Clarke, so he thanks god when Clarke stops with a tiny hiccup.

"I just–" she sucks in a shuddering breath. "I just didn't expect this to happen."

Assurances are on the tip of his tongue when he goes cold all over. What if…?

"Clarke," he says, his voice painfully neutral. "Do you not…want it?"

She looks at him sharply. "Wha–no!" She must see the way he swallows convulsively because she keeps shaking her head. "No, Bellamy. I _want _it. I just didn't expect for it to happen so _soon_. I knew that the others have almost a year left before their implants fail, and I _thought _I did, too."

"Because it's...it's okay if you don't want it," Bellamy says quietly, and it _hurts _to say but it's still true. He loves _her,_ and if this...if this isn't what she wants, he'll still love her. It's not the kind of love that he can stop.

"Stop," she hisses at him. "Stop asking me that, or I'm going to think you're asking for _you._"

"N-no!" he stutters. "No."

"Good," she says firmly.

They sit in silence and thoughts are whirling around his head while Clarke avoids his eyes and twists her hands together.

"A baby?" he whispers after a moment, his eyes locked on her face. She glances up at him, seems to see something in his face that he can barely feel, his emotions clouded by those same two words repeating in his head. _A baby._

"Yeah," Clarke says, a little smile taking over her lips. When her hands touch his again, he grabs them like a lifeline. "Probably in November, my mom thinks."

(That's an uncomfortable reminder that Abby Griffin is now overly informed about the nature of his and Clarke's relationship, but he brushes that thought off.)

"Are you going to be this sick the whole time?" he asks suddenly. He can't remember his mother getting sick like Clarke's been.

Clarke shakes her head. "No, the morning sickness will pass, and now that I know what's going on I can be more careful with my eating and working."

"Okay." Bellamy lets out a breath it feels like he's been holding for hours. "Okay."

He looks at Clarke, and she's looking at him, and he can't stop himself from lurching forward and pressing his mouth to hers over and over until she's all he can taste and breathe and think. _She's alright. _

He was terrified, out-of-his-mind-scared when he thought Clark was dying. He's still fucking terrified, but mixed with the terror is a frantic, nervous sort of joy that he's not sure he'll ever get over.

Someone clears their throat conspicuously and they pull apart to glance over to the medbay door. Clarke's mother is standing in the doorway, radio in her hand and a small but noticeable smile on her face. Bellamy can't bring himself to bother to be embarrassed about being caught.

"Raven's been trying to contact you," she says, and places the radio in Bellamy's outstretched hand before retreating.

"Raven?" he says.

"Bellamy?" Raven's voice comes through the device, a little scratchy but clearly worried. "It's been hours! How's Clarke? Is she okay? Everybody here is going kind of crazy."

Bellamy laughs a little and Raven curses at him, so Clarke takes the radio from him with a frown.

"Raven? I'm fine," she assures the other woman. Raven makes a skeptical noise, and Clarke raises a brow at Bellamy. He shrugs and sends her a crooked grin.

"Whatever you want to tell her, princess," he says.

"Tell me what?" Ravens voice crackles.

Clarke opens her mouth, but then Bellamy can tell she doesn't know how to say it. She's pregnant, they're having a baby, the whole _world _is changing all over again and they're only the first to know how.

Clarke shuts her mouth again, then smiles at him––a real, true smile this time, not a smile of fear or uncertainty even though there's plenty of that to come in the next months of a pregnancy spent on a radioactive planet––and lifts the radio.

"Tell you all when we get home, Raven," Clarke says, and as she leans forward to press her forehead against Bellamy's, Raven replies in a strange, almost soft tone that days later makes him think she's somehow already guessed the news.

"Copy that."


End file.
